Calgary Wranglers Recap: Matthew Phillips scores 14th game winner in 4-2 win over the Gulls
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers and San Diego Gulls kicked off their weekend with a Friday night game. The Gulls hosted the Wranglers for their first of two games in two days and had the odds stacked against them. The Wranglers continue to be the best in the league and lead their season series 6-0-0-0 going into this game. Despite the score being tight up until late in the third period, the Wranglers continued to find success against the Gulls and won this game 4-2.
Game at a glance
Action came early in this match-up with a fight taking place less than three minutes into the game. Mitch McLain tangled up with a Gulls skater. Both took a seat for their off-setting fighting majors.
Later in the opening half of the first, the Wranglers found themselves shorthanded and a familiar face beat Dustin Wolf for the opening goal of the game. That goal scorer was former Stockton Heat player and occasional Flames call-up, Glenn Gawdin. Gawdin scored 9:11 into the game on the powerplay.
The first wrapped up with only one goal to San Diego and the Wranglers were behind on the scoreboard despite their 12-11 advantage in shots. In the second, they wasted no time answering back and tying up the game.
Ben Jones got the puck on his stick 2:20 into the second period and took it and exploded into the offensive zone. He took a shot and scored a shorthanded goal to earn the Wranglers their first goal of the night. Clark Bishop earned the lone assist.
Later in the period, the Gulls scored their second and regained their one goal lead. This goal came 9:55 into the second period. There would be one more goal before the end of the period and that came from Ilya Solovyov 17:29 into the second. Ben Jones and Adam Klapka assisted on Solovyov’s fourth goal of the season. This is why you put the puck on net and good things happen.
That completed the second period scoring and the Wranglers went into the third tied 2-2. In the third, things tightened up as both sides were looking for that go-ahead goal once again. It would not happen until late in the period when Matthew Phillips had a sneaky read on a clearing attempt and took the puck away from the Gulls and scored off his ever so dangerous shot 16:23 into the period.
This goal would go on to be the game winning goal and put Matthew Phillips up to 14 game winning goals on the season and an active eight game point streak.
The Wranglers would seal off this game with just nine seconds to go when Brett Sutter scored on the empty net. The final score finished up at 4-2 for the Wranglers and they outshot San Diego 34-25.
Matthew Phillips picked up the first star of the night and Dustin Wolf earned the third star of the night. Clark Bishop and Ben Jones finished up the game with multi-point nights with Bishop registering two assists and Jones registering a goal and an assist.
Next up
This series continues into Saturday night when the Wranglers and Gulls will pay their last regular season match-up against each other. The puck drop is set for the same time as Friday’s game with an 8:00 p.m. MT start time.
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